In an attempt to better understand Lemmy I’m wondering if some of you can shed a light on what the deal is between.ml and .world. The history, any significant event or a betrayal, how did we all run away from spez only to come here and throw mud at each other?

I’m sure it confuses a great deal of Reddit refugees who just signed up with the largest instance because of (in my case future proofing) reasons.

I’m wondering how this historic feud came to be and how I can be called a “Zionist” just because of my instance, and they are called “fascists” even though I’ve come across some pretty levelheaded people from that instance too.

Please, keep it civil!

I’m not trying to start a fight or mud slinging, it would be good if several people could say their piece and nobody shame or attack them for it no matter how much you disagree.

Thanks

  • cm0002@lemy.lol
    1·
    20 days ago

    I think my crossposting explainer should suit, in general, admins of .ml are Tankies (authoritarian communists) who support and defend authoritarian countries in all the things they do like Russia, NK and China.

    They propagate Russian propaganda on Ukraine (They’re just being “liberated”), deny chinas genocides and NK is actually truly a socialist country and it’s authoritarianism is just western propaganda.

    The megathread linked below documents and has a more robust explainer

    You’ll get banned for showing support for Ukraine or going against Russian narratives or if you remind them of Putlers promise to not invade or just shit talking Putler in general

    Or calling out propaganda sites - https://lemmy.world/post/32776038 | https://lemmy.world/post/33416433 | https://lemmy.world/post/34051329 | https://lemmy.world/post/35919522

    Or so much more, I actually haven’t updated the megathread in a few months, but there’s more recent stuff on !meanwhileongrad@sh.itjust.works

    Join the lemmy.ml boycott today and help foster a better Lemmy-verse! No more posts, comments (except to counter their propaganda ofc!) or upvotes on any comms on the Lemmy.ml instance! To make this easy you can do an instance block at Settings > Block Tab > Scroll to bottom > Input “lemmy.ml” and apply And consider donating to individual instances instead.

    Why am I cross-posting .ml content?

    I cross-post from .ml to the nearest relevant non-.ml comm to reduce the influence of .ml comms and indirectly, the instance as a whole, to help vitalize non-.ml comms and make it an easier decision for other instance admins to defederate because one key reason I identified that admins don’t want to defederate is because .ml still has some very large comms and some active niche comms.

    Megathread on the issue

    Some highlights from the link:

    Dessalines, head .ml admin, lead Lemmy dev actively spreading genocide denialism https://sh.itjust.works/post/61371958

    .ml admin, Nutomics continued transphobia https://lemmy.world/post/29222558 The original transphobic Comment from Nutomic: https://lemmy.world/post/18236068

    “If you don’t support Russia then you just don’t understand geopolitics” ~dessalines, .ml admin, dev https://lemmy.world/post/27352415

    "Don’t worry guys, the Uyghur Genocide was REALLY just birth control! ~dessalines, .ml admin, dev https://lemmy.world/post/30580167

    “See! nobody died IN Tiananmen Square, just AROUND it, so it doesn’t count!!” ~ Davel, .ml admin https://lemmy.world/post/30673342

    “NK is actually good and anything counter to that is Western propaganda!” ~dessalines, .ml admin, dev https://lemmy.world/post/31595035

    General negative sentiment to other instances who haven’t “seen the way” yet ~davel, .ml admin https://lemmy.world/post/27426510

    And so so much documentation on clear heavy handed censorship and bias also on the link. So much I can’t even put them all here because this comment would be really long.

    I believe the behavior of its admins (the main admins are Lemmy devs) does harm to the overall growth of the Lemmy-verse and maybe even the Thrediverse (since Lemmy kinda kicked off the Thrediverse) because of its association with the devs of Lemmy and their insistence to use .ml as their personal political platform to spread harmful propaganda

    On the outside, bringing up Lemmy frequently leads to comments like “Lemmy? Isn’t that the place with a bunch of tankies?” Or “Tried Lemmy, but found it full of pro Russia crap so I left”. The best way forward from that I see is to either widely defederate from .ml like the rest of the Triad, or pressure them to put a fair and unbiased as possible admin team.

  • Sergio@piefed.socialEnglish
    0·
    20 days ago

    “See, the problem is, that this is the fediverse,” the Cat said. “You are now among weird people.”
    “But I don’t want to be among weird people here,” OP remarked.
    “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all weird here. I’m weird. You’re weird.”
    “How do you know I’m weird?” said OP.
    “You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”

  • one_old_coder@piefed.socialEnglish
    0·
    20 days ago

    I know nothing about lemmy.world, but lemmy.ml and hexbear.net are filled with tankies (aka angry teenagers IMHO) and have been defederated with a lot of instances.

    lemmy.ml is writing the original source code of Lemmy, but I don’t remember any betrayal. Most users are not throwing mud, we mostly and politely ignore each other I guess.

    (anyway, come to https://piefed.social/ instead because it’s the best frontend!)

  • lokalhorst@feddit.org
    0·
    20 days ago

    Lemmy is strongly left-leaning and well you probably know the joke where two leftist enter a bar and 3 splinter groups come out.

    My general advice is to instance block lemmy.ml and avoid the war in Palestine/Israel.

    Lemmy.ml is the flagship instance of the authoritarian lemmy developers @nutomic@lemmy.ml and @dessalines@lemmy.ml and they unfortunately are not separating development and server administration. As Lemmy.ml is the oldest instance, many newbies think it is “the main Lemmy instance”, way before they realize what the concept of federation means. ml’s influence has weakened in the last years, but it’s still influencing the discussion a lot. Check !meanwhileongrad@sh.itjust.works to get an idea about ml.

  • someguy3@lemmy.world
    0·
    20 days ago

    .ml is the old instance from before Reddit exodus and it’s full of tankies and the weirdest takes you’ve ever seen (cue replies).

    .world is the new popular instance.

    That’s about it. Some people read into it that ml users are upset that they are no longer the default instance and can’t control the narrative. While world just doesn’t care and keeps on trucking. Who knows.

    • Maeve@kbin.earth
      01·
      20 days ago

      Dishonest much?

      I’m glad to know it’s owned by a non-profit, that means it’s tax free, like certain churches, and it’s definitely full of Zionists, with Zionist talking points.

  • okwhateverdude@lemmy.world
    0·
    20 days ago

    I don’t think there is any organized feud, as such. A lot of instance population is actually self-selecting. Ideological instances are common. .ml happens to be one of the bigger ideological ones. Unfortunately, they tend to support authoritarian narratives coming out of countries that like to invade their neighbors. Lots of russian disinformation comes from that instance in particular.

    • AskewLord@piefed.socialEnglish
      0·
      20 days ago

      i don’t think it’s so much a feud so much as .ml folks are much more hardcore and they actively proselytize their beliefs and .world users aren’t as aggressive in that way. .ml is more active and .world is more reactive, at least in my experience.

      generally you also won’t get banned in a .world community for disagreement, you will absolutely get banned for any non-group think in a .ml community.

      • Calfpupa [she/her]@lemmy.mlEnglish
        01·
        20 days ago

        .world users have the benefit of all current propaganda pushing their positions so it makes sense they don’t feel the need to talk about it. I have been banned by many .world subs simply for linking evidence against claims, while I only was banned from .ml once when I unintentionally promoted hurting someone (and was unbanned when I messaged mods about it, which has yet to happen on any .world).

  • ShellMonkey@piefed.socdojo.comEnglish
    0·
    20 days ago

    Instances tend to be flavored towards certain groups of people. There are a particular group of 3 instances, one being Lemmy.ml the others known as hexbear and lemmygrad that cater to people who essentially think that all western society is corrupt and that NK, China, Russia, etc are the saviors of the world.

    lemmy.ml happens to be the flagship instance of the software creators which causes a lot of friction in terms of if they should be cut off or not.

    • Calfpupa [she/her]@lemmy.mlEnglish
      01·
      20 days ago

      Interesting misrepresentation of those three instances, I’d better phrase it as “users on the three support countries that directly undermine western Imperialism when forced to choose between western imperialism or other countries.” Virtually all members there understand “critical support,” which is when you support a cause overall but are still critical of aspects of it.

      • Asetru@feddit.org
        1·
        20 days ago

        Found the tankie.

        Good to know that blocking the instance doesn’t block its users. God dammit. Can’t you tell the people on your conspiracy server to fix that so I don’t have to endure you?

          • yeahiknow3@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            20 days ago

            This obsession with east vs west is paradigmatic of tankie tribalist ideology. They can’t conceive of someone who doesn’t obsess over nationality or ethnic and cultural loyalties. Humans are humans. We should fight to be free from state oppression. Not complicated.

            • Maeve@kbin.earth
              01·
              20 days ago

              When you guys get on board with putting a stop to the marauding, plundering, pillaging, genocide, sexual assault, genocide, and coups, not to mention wage suppression so you can have cheap gas and trinkets, those of us with a conscience would stop obsessing. Not complicated.

            • YappyMonotheist@lemmy.world
              01·
              20 days ago

              It’s not “loyalties”, but culturally informed/derived ideology and attitudes and the particular brand of propaganda people are getting. This is observable, and you’re not thinking clearly about this.

              • yeahiknow3@lemmy.worldEnglish
                1·
                20 days ago

                it’s not “loyalties” but … the particular brand of propaganda people are getting.

                State propaganda exists to engender loyalty to the regime. That’s the whole point.

                They are quick to jump on any “western” wrongdoing, but equally quick to dismiss much worse from their own tribe. Because they are tribalists and nationalists who favor some nations over others — because they’re brainfucked by propaganda, as you said.

                • Maeve@kbin.earth
                  01·
                  20 days ago

                  Jesus Christ, operations gladio and condor, couping/embargoing/sanctioning every government that tried differently isn’t enough?

                • YappyMonotheist@lemmy.world
                  01·
                  20 days ago

                  I think you missed my point.

                  And uhh, maybe the actual tankies that people hate so much, but that’s not what I see on .ml, at least in my limited experience. And I have no horse in this race (I’ve not only been banned/silenced on .ml a couple of times but I’m also a believer, which is usually frowned upon in these circles, for reasons I somewhat understand), I just see the enmity/friction between instances for what it is: traditional and dishonest Western imperialists who uphold the status quo but also care about optics (and because of the latter, would never admit it unlike their “MAGA” siblings who, being challenged, actually think being inhuman and coercive for material gain are positive attributes) and those who call them out for it. Whoever complains about “tankies on Lemmy” on the regular is just telling on themselves, basically.

        • Maeve@kbin.earth
          01·
          20 days ago

          And you’re “that kind” of asatreau so careful with that salute.

      • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        20 days ago

        Virtually all members there understand “critical support,” which is when you support a cause overall but are still critical of aspects of it.

        I don’t think that could be further from the truth.

          • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
            1·
            20 days ago

            Years of direct personal experience at this point, the vast majority I’ve interacted with have been pathologically idealistic and manichean. Maybe I just happen to interact with an extremely vocal minority, maybe. But in any case “virtually all” is patently ridiculous.

            • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
              01·
              20 days ago

              if someone is constantly running into bad faith attacks against socialist states and cold war propaganda, they’re going to tend to lead with defense rather than internal critique. that’s not the same as having no critique.

            • Calfpupa [she/her]@lemmy.mlEnglish
              01·
              20 days ago

              Interesting, because my 4 years of experience I have found less than 5, which is why I said “virtually none.” Have you considered that maybe your own actions have caused people to galvanize against your opinions? Many who practice critical support don’t break it down for people when the interlocutor is obviously obstante.

        • Maeve@kbin.earth
          01·
          20 days ago

          I think you’re do propagandized, you wouldn’t know truth if you look it in the face, as evidenced by your comments.

      • spankysalmon@fedinsfw.appEnglish
        1·
        20 days ago

        Ahh yes, undermine western imperialism. Unashamedly deepthroat Russian/Chinese imperialism. You are very smart!

  • AskewLord@piefed.socialEnglish
    0·
    20 days ago

    .world is less crazy/extremist than .ml generally.

    still, the majority of the lemmy/fedi userbase skews far left idealism, and is 100% comfortable with extremist opinions of using violence and mass coercion and demonization of anyone who doesn’t believe like they do. many users here also actively deny reality and history, if you take a more facts-based approach to life you’re going to get targeted a lot here as an evil doer.

    According to .ml you are Zionist unless you don’t support the extermination of Israeli and Israelis. accord to .world you’re a Zionist if you don’t support the expulsion of Jewish people from Palestine and the dissolution of the Jewish state. both are pretty far-out there opinions, but again most users here are extremists or one flavor or another.

    if you aren’t a far-leftism foaming about the mouth about mass murder of your political opponents you’re going ot find it trying to be here for long. unless you’re just indifference to the hostility you will encounter, or systematically block people who tell you to die for having a different opinion or even acknowledge the existence of different opinions, than they hold.

    • kingofras@lemmy.worldOP
      01·
      20 days ago

      TIL

      I’ve been here for a while, where did you catch these notions? I feel like there’s this Friday night after work drinks I’ve never been to, so I missed out on all the office gos.

  • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
    0·
    20 days ago

    There’s no specific instance wide feud between the two or anything. At a high level, .world is just the biggest Lemmy server currently by MAU and .ml is just the oldest and flagship ones run by the main developers of the Lemmy software.

    Now, the moderation philosophy between the two differs a fair bit, which is where the rivalries and the bad blood develops between users. On most general topics you’d see very little difference, but as soon as discussion touches the Russia-Ukraine conflict, anything negative about China, and the Israel-Palestine war, the mods on ml are aggressively one-sided in their moderation, and consider anything that goes against that perception as hate-speech against Russia/China/Palestine even if that’s not what you are saying. If you want an illustrative example, look in the modlog at the ‘nazi apologia’ comment I was tempbanned from !memes@lemmy.ml for.

    Still, as community and instance managers, that’s their right. There’s significant overlap between lemmy.ml, lemmygrad.ml where moderation is more overtly this way, and hexbear.net where users like to communicate with image macros more in ways that I think most other server members find annoying. Some on world don’t like that so certain users crosspost discussions from ml communities onto world communities. Some users call the ml folks tankies for their disdain of violence committed everywhere except where committed by Russia, China and its allies. Some ml users (and many lemmygrad+hexbear users) call users on other servers libs for the converse reason, excusing or not pushing back hard enough on atrocities and oppression caused by Western governments. Some users like to generalize these characterizations to every user of an instance, it seems.

    Aside from high profile defederations with ml or world and some servers for various reasons, refederations, redefederations between hexbear and other servers, there have not been any specific incidents that have caused .world and .ml to grow apart. I think it’s fine to let each server have its space.

      • SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.socialEnglish
        1·
        20 days ago

        I find it’s quite accurate.

        Try going on a .world community and talking about the genocide of Palestinians then try going on a .ml community and try talking about the genocides of Ukraine and Uyghurs and get back to me.

        • Maeve@kbin.earth
          01·
          20 days ago

          Try looking at Gell-Mann amnesia, CIA meddling and psyops, psychological denial to the point of being unable to consider different perspectives and explanations and get back to me.

            • Maeve@kbin.earth
              01·
              20 days ago

              You’ve been offered our views multiple times and refused to consider for an instant. I’m not doing it again. You know where to find the information and reflect.

                • Maeve@kbin.earth
                  01·
                  20 days ago

                  You’ve been offered our views multiple times and refused to consider for an instant. I’m not doing it again. You know where to find the information and reflect.

          • SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.socialEnglish
            1·
            20 days ago

            One other point on this I got a couple month instance ban from little spez on .ml for talking about the genocides of Ukrainians and the Uyghurs and I’ve never got one on .world for defending Palestine and talking shit about Israel

      • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
        0·
        20 days ago

        Hey, I’m aware I have my own biases. I’ve tried to describe the situation in a fair and reasoned way as best I can, based off the experiences I’ve had over the last 3.5 years, including before lemmy.world even started, your experience may differ from mine and that’s okay. I donate quarterly to the Lemmy devs and occasionally to my homeserver’s foundation, so please feel free to accuse me of bias in either way.

  • Stormy@thelemmy.club
    0·
    20 days ago

    That sub is ran by people with a serious agenda. Its like the propaganda farm of lemmy. The mods beg you to stop reporting outright disinformation and the users are argumentative for no reason and aim to radicalize people of both persuasions.

  • Magister@lemmy.world
    0·
    20 days ago

    In the beginning there was lemmy.ml only, BTW no one mentioned it but the dev choose .ml because “Marxism–Leninism”. It is a far-left guy with far-left ideology.

    When reddit blocked its APIs a few years ago, a lot of people went to “lemmy” and a lot of new instance were created, like lemmy.world, which is not far-left, so a lot of people joined it.

  • worhui@lemmy.world
    0·
    20 days ago

    There is no ‘deal’

    There are some extremely active and vocal users on .ml that have a specific view point that they feel is extremely important.

    You will see that viewpoint expressed not just on political posts, but in the comments of seemingly unrelated topics.

    It seems that .ml was defederated from world to keep some separation of that view point and other topics.

    You are still fully free to join any instance you want. You can even find community here to post that content if you wish, but there is a more active and vibrant community on .ml for that content.

  • HubertManne@piefed.socialEnglish
    0·
    20 days ago

    Only thing I know is someone has a bug up their craw about .ml and made a bunch of accounts to repost .ml stuff to .world. It was kinda a good thing because I think this user is part of the reason my attitude toward blocking being an overall good thing evolved. I mean I realized it before from mmo chats but I think it kinda solidifed it for me. Other than that there is grousing from folks but overall I just block communities im not interested in and users that interact in ways im not cool with.

  • Ephera@lemmy.ml
    01·
    20 days ago

    Be mindful that it’s often just a handful accounts that post this stuff.

    Well, alright, it’s actually 36 accounts with the username “cm0002”, but you get the idea.

    • cm0002@lemy.lol
      1·
      20 days ago

      Yup, it’s just me who stands against .mls authoritarianism lmao

      Why am I cross-posting .ml content?

      I cross-post from .ml to the nearest relevant non-.ml comm to reduce the influence of .ml comms and indirectly, the instance as a whole, to help vitalize non-.ml comms and make it an easier decision for other instance admins to defederate because one key reason I identified that admins don’t want to defederate is because .ml still has some very large comms and some active niche comms.

      Megathread on the issue

      Some highlights from the link:

      Dessalines, head .ml admin, lead Lemmy dev actively spreading genocide denialism https://sh.itjust.works/post/61371958

      .ml admin, Nutomics continued transphobia https://lemmy.world/post/29222558 The original transphobic Comment from Nutomic: https://lemmy.world/post/18236068

      “If you don’t support Russia then you just don’t understand geopolitics” ~dessalines, .ml admin, dev https://lemmy.world/post/27352415

      "Don’t worry guys, the Uyghur Genocide was REALLY just birth control! ~dessalines, .ml admin, dev https://lemmy.world/post/30580167

      “See! nobody died IN Tiananmen Square, just AROUND it, so it doesn’t count!!” ~ Davel, .ml admin https://lemmy.world/post/30673342

      “NK is actually good and anything counter to that is Western propaganda!” ~dessalines, .ml admin, dev https://lemmy.world/post/31595035

      General negative sentiment to other instances who haven’t “seen the way” yet ~davel, .ml admin https://lemmy.world/post/27426510

      And so so much documentation on clear heavy handed censorship and bias also on the link. So much I can’t even put them all here because this comment would be really long.

      I believe the behavior of its admins (the main admins are Lemmy devs) does harm to the overall growth of the Lemmy-verse and maybe even the Thrediverse (since Lemmy kinda kicked off the Thrediverse) because of its association with the devs of Lemmy and their insistence to use .ml as their personal political platform to spread harmful propaganda

      On the outside, bringing up Lemmy frequently leads to comments like “Lemmy? Isn’t that the place with a bunch of tankies?” Or “Tried Lemmy, but found it full of pro Russia crap so I left”. The best way forward from that I see is to either widely defederate from .ml like the rest of the Triad, or pressure them to put a fair and unbiased as possible admin team.